getfacl man page

For each file, getfacl displays the file name, owner, the group, and the Access Control List (ACL). If a directory has a default ACL, getfacl also displays the default ACL. Non-directories cannot have default ACLs.

If getfacl is used on a file system that does not support ACLs, getfacl displays the access permissions defined by the traditional file mode permission bits.

Line 4 indicates the setuid (s), setgid (s), and sticky (t) bits: either the letter representing the bit, or else a dash (-). This line is included if any of those bits is set and left out otherwise, so it will not be shown for most files. (See CONFORMANCE TO POSIX 1003.1e DRAFT STANDARD 17 below.)

Lines 5, 7 and 10 correspond to the user, group and other fields of the file mode permission bits. These three are called the base ACL entries. Lines 6 and 8 are named user and named group entries. Line 9 is the effective rights mask. This entry limits the effective rights granted to all groups and to named users. (The file owner and others permissions are not affected by the effective rights mask; all other entries are.) Lines 11--15 display the default ACL associated with this directory. Directories may have a default ACL. Regular files never have a default ACL.

The default behavior for getfacl is to display both the ACL and the default ACL, and to include an effective rights comment for lines where the rights of the entry differ from the effective rights.

If output is to a terminal, the effective rights comment is aligned to column 40. Otherwise, a single tab character separates the ACL entry and the effective rights comment.

The ACL listings of multiple files are separated by blank lines. The output of getfacl can also be used as input to setfacl.

Process with search access to a file (i.e., processes with read access to the containing directory of a file) are also granted read access to the file's ACLs. This is analogous to the permissions required for accessing the file mode.

Use an alternative tabular output format. The ACL and the default ACL are displayed side by side. Permissions that are ineffective due to the ACL mask entry are displayed capitalized. The entry tag names for the ACL_USER_OBJ and ACL_GROUP_OBJ entries are also displayed in capital letters, which helps in spotting those entries.

If the environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT is defined, the default behavior of getfacl changes in the following ways: Unless otherwise specified, only the ACL is printed. The default ACL is only printed if the -d option is given. If no command line parameter is given, getfacl behaves as if it was invoked as “getfacl -”. No flags comments indicating the setuid, setgit, and sticky bits are generated.